Pedro Martínez: I think that's why it's a good idea to look at the current law, adjust it so that it can't be exploited by those who do so illegally, and at the same time, consider all the possible scenarios and find language that covers those clearly. My attitude is that someone seeking to legally enter the US, if they have a child here (before they are granted citizenship) that child should be automatically given citizenship. However, anyone who enters the US illegally, and have a child while here, that child is NOT granted automatic citizenship. Visitors to the US, if they have a child while visiting, do not get citizenship for that child. It's for people who are here legally with intentions of seeking citizenship themselves. Those on worker programs here legally but living in another country, should also not be granted citizenship to their children born here. The Republican party is right on in looking at amending the 14th. Clearly, the 14th's original purpose is being abused and Democrats are looking the other way (because it means votes for them - they don't really care about the people - ultimately they only care about remaining in power.

Artful Dodger: The idea is not bad, no doubt about it, but this would mean a significant breakthrough in the international law as we know it. The entire conflict-of-law area would have to be revised. Say, for example, that a child born in a particular country would become a national of that country only if its mother was not an illegal alien. But then – what nationality would the child have? The one of its mother? The one of the country from which the mother came to the country where the child was born? I am not against reconsidering the current system, but it would cause lots of problems.

Tuesday: Democrats ONLY want birthright for one reason: Votes. They don't care about he abuse that's going on. As long as they can retain power, that's all they care about.

The 14th amendment was NEVER intended for anchor babies. I fully support the change the Republicans are trying to make. YOU on the other hand seem fine about supporting fraud.

The purpose and REASON for the 14th: The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.

It was NOT so that people could cross the boarder illeaglly (a word Dems don't understand) have their baby (at taxpayer's expense) and then USE THAT CHILD A AND EXCUSE TO STAY IN THE US!.

This is NOT the intention of the 14th. During the original debate over the amendment Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan—the author of the Citizenship Clause—described the clause as excluding "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers." He was supported by other senators, including Edgar Cowan, Reverdy Johnson, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lyman Trumbull.

It makes complete sense to take a look at this amendment and close the "loophole" whereby those that cross the border illegally FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF HAVING THEIR BABY INSIDE THE BORDERS OF THE US will NOT be granted citizenship for their child. Those here illegally, who break our LAWS (democrats have trouble with that concept) should NOT be granted citizenship. They should be sent back to their own country. Do it legally or get sent back. We have laws, obey them or leave.

You liberals have a problem with that concept.

Tuesday: They already have this. What the libs means is that people like me, who work hard, (and my home is PAID FOR) should have our money STOLEN FROM US so that some lazy welfare ground feeder can get a free or reduced house. BS

Did you know that the Bible says that if you won't work you shouldn't be fed? Newsflash: you have to contribute or you should go without!

Tuesday: Which means they can CHANCE IT TO MEAN SOMETHING ELSE !

Tuesday: I hope it gets through. I'd bet you don't even know the original purpose of the Constitutional principle of birthright.

Tuesday: "He wants to get rid of the language about birthright citizenship,"
A good idea.

" federal income taxes"

They need to change

" and direct election of senators,"

We didn't elect senators directly until Congress changed it. He just wants to go back to the way the Founders set it up.

"He would add plenty of stuff, including explicitly authorizing castration as punishment for child rapists."

WithOUT a local. AND, I'll throw in a pound of salt in that wound.

Übergeek 바둑이: this is that to which I don't agree.

Bernice:the current topic is relevant to to current events and therefore relevant to this board, as long as it does not get personal it is allowed, you are always welcome to not read the board for a few days

Artful Dodger:

> I don't agree.

You would disagree even with the Old Testament? I am not making up the story of Ishmael. It is in Genesis!

I thought this was the POLITICS board

Forum for discussing local and world politics and issues

Im sick of having religion shoved down my throat in here, along with the abortion issue.....lets stick to politics as the headline suggests please.

Artful Dodger:

> Who can really understand God? But as I understand it, the Spirit is personal, distinct from God the Father, but ONE with the Father.
> The Spirit IS God as God is God as Jesus is God. The Spirit is the second Person of the Trinity.

This is an interpretation of the Gospels. When John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, Jesus comes out of the water and Heaven opens. There descends a dove, and a voice from Heaven says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

The interpretation is that the voice is God as the Father, the dove is God as the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God as the Son.

This is God's miracle. He can be three beings at the same time. Thereby God shows that He has a power beyond that of a human being. Only God can be father and son at the same time. In other words, God creates himself, and manifests himself spiritually, without the physical limitations of a human being.

Of course, this is a matter of faith. Moslems do not see Jesus as the Son of God. As this Arab I met years ago told me. "Why should God need a son? If God wants to do something, He does it himself. He needs nobody else."

I suppose faith is a tricky thing, particularly since there is no solid historical proof that Jesus or John the Baptist existed. Belief in the Holy Trinity is entirely a matter of faith.

Tuesday: I don't agree.

Übergeek 바둑이: It's simply not the case that they are the same. But there is no point going over it with you again.

Artful Dodger:

> Christians don't claim that the God of the Jews isn't the same ONE as the God of the Christians. They are the same.

You said that Moslems have a different god. The point I am trying to make is that Moslems do worship the same God, not only that, but Zoroastrianism predates Judaism and it also worshiped the same monotheistic God.

Of course, Genesis says clearly that Abraham had a son with Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden. This son was called Ishmael and was the father of race today identified with the "northern Arabs". Arabs consider themselves Abraham's descendants too. Thise just merely points to a common origin for all Semitic people's of Asia Minor.

Jim Dandy: Nothing like that at all.

Artful Dodger: kinda like the congress, senate and President with the same amount of gridlock

Jim Dandy: Who can really understand God? But as I understand it, the Spirit is personal, distinct from God the Father, but ONE with the Father. The Spirit IS God as God is God as Jesus is God. The Spirit is the second Person of the Trinity.

Artful Dodger: Who's the "holy ghost"?

I know the "father" is the shared between Jews and Christian "God", the "son" is Jesus, but who is the Ghost?

Übergeek 바둑이: Christians don't claim that the God of the Jews isn't the same ONE as the God of the Christians. They are the same.

Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew and he died a Jew. Christianity as such did not exist until Saitn Paul reinterpreted the death of Jesus as the salvation of mankind from the Original Sin that all human beings inherited from Adam. Thus, both Judaism and Christianity worship the same God. Of course both religions are very different since Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. Judaism is still waiting for its Messiah, although it did have four in the past in the forms of Moses, David, Solomon and Darius the Great (he is called a Messiah in the Old Testament even though he was a Zoroastrian Persian).

Islam arose later, out of Judaic and Christian beliefs among Arabs. The Prophet Mohammed reinterpreted both the Old and New Testaments. In his view (or rather that of Moslem scholars through the Middle Ages) Jesus was a prophet, but not the Son of God. All of the prophets of the Jews are also the prophets of Islam, and Islam also acknowledges Abraham as the first true prophet.

To say that the religions worship different Gods is wishful thinking. It is the desire to set each other apart, and it is born out of prejudice and fear. "There is no way my Christian God is the same as the Islamic God or the Jew God." It might appeal to those who are prejudiced and ignorant.

Of course, the first monotheistic religion was Zoroastrianism. The Chaldean civilization was an offshoot of the Babilonian civilization, and Abraham was a Chaldean. As such he would have been aware of Zoroastrian monotheism, and Genesis clearly points in some passages to the existence of other monotheistic tribes in ancient Judea.

Of course, it was the Zoroastrians who first personified good as God (Ahura Mazda) and evil as the Devil (Ariman). According to the Zend Avesta their epic war was waged for eons. Zoroaster predates Abraham by about 400 years, but neither Jews nor Christians nor Moslems acknowledge Zoroastrianism because that was the religion of the Persians, one of the dominant empires of antiquity.

Jim Dandy: And that makes you an expert.

Artful Dodger: cuz I've watched him on God's news network many times

Jim Dandy: And you know this how?

(V): Forget about names. It doesn't matter what the Arabic word for “God” is. Take bread as an analogy. Go to a store in the UK and ask for a loaf of bread. Then do the same thing in the Czech Republic (using the Czech word for bread) and see what you get. Two different things.

(V): Making money isn't a crime, Walid Shoebat is comfort food in the buffet of propoganda placed before us

Artful Dodger: Walid Shoebat seems to be a bit of a liar... made a bit of money out of it since coming to America. If Allah is false due to worship before.. then so is our Christian God as he was one of many before Moses converted the Israelites.

"Jesus is denied as God and called only a prophet. Islam god is one. The Christian God is triune."

.... The Christian God is not triune.. that is a doctrine and is not recognised throughout Christianity as being true. Allah has many names to describe him, just as G-D does in the Jewish faith. The name Allah is used by some Jewish faiths and Christian faiths as the name for God.

so you are wrong again

And Jesus is not God.. he is the the leader of the Christian sonship. God and human at the same time just as we all are. Strictly speaking.. we are all God.

Pedro Martínez: Well put. As for the Trinitarian view, that is the orthodox view and those that claim Jesus is not also God are outside of orthodoxy. Jesus asked, "Who do you say that I am." and the answer, which Jesus applauded was, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Most High God." Not a son, but The Son. Many other things Jesus said indicated (at least to the Jews at the time) that He was equal with God, fully ONE with God. He was worshiped and Jesus accepted that worship. My view is that it is NOT a Christian teaching that Jesus was a son of God. Rather, it is a view put out by people who "claim" to be Christians but are well outside accepted orthodoxy. In Christianity, Jesus matters. And who Christians believe HE is matters completely. A wrong view of Jesus ultimately means that the Jesus you follow is a creation of your own and that would be viewed as a false Jesus. It mattered to Jesus who people claimed He was. He Himself claimed to be God so if Jesus wasn't really God, he is as Lewis said, on the level of a poached egg.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

Artful Dodger: There are a lot of Christian teachings that say that Jesus was a son of God, aren't there? These non-trinitarian beliefs don't view Jesus as the God himself. So this makes your argument a bit weaker. But I personally do agree that the Christian God and the Islamic God are two different entities. Wikipedia says that Islam teaches that God as referenced in the Qur'an is the only god and the same God worshipped by members of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity and Judaism. and backs this claim by the following quote from the Qur'an (in three different translations):

“YUSUFALI: And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, "We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him we bow (in Islam)."
PICKTHAL: And argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our Allah and your Allah is One, and unto Him we surrender.
SHAKIR: And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by what is best, except those of them who act unjustly, and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our Allah and your Allah is One, and to Him do we submit.”

However, I don't think it can be inferred from the above that the God is Allah and Allah is God.

In simple words, the two religions are too different to believe that they worship the same superpowerful being.

Vikings: As per usual, Jules doesn't know what he's talking about with respect to the god of Islam. It's much wiser to take the word of someone whose been on the inside of the Islamic faith. Walid Shoebat is an expert on Islam having been raised as a Muslim and was an active PLO terrorist. I've heard him speak twice and he's powerful. He explains for one that the god of Islam is NOT the same as the God of the Bible. I'll take his word over someone who really doesn't have a full understanding.

Jesus is the Christian God. Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus and God are ONE. In Islam, Jesus is denied as God and called only a prophet. Islam god is one. The Christian God is triune. Allah was worshiped before Muhammad and was one of the hundreds of gods that Arabs worshiped. He was the chief God and Muhammad simply took that god and made him the only god of Islam. Allah was a pagan god before Islam was ever created. Cries to the contrary are cries against historical facts. And as we all know, facts are stubborn things.

Vikings: Rubbish. Judaism/Christianity & Islam all are based on interpretation of the same God and his word to us.

The Jewish G-d.. The Christian God and The Muslim God (Allah) are the same.

It might be good to look at the reformation of the Christian faiths when the new Protestant faith based folk and the Roman Catholic church were coming up with the same sort of arguments as some of you guys are today (millions dead through that argument)... or further back to the formation of the Roman Catholic Church where conformity came at the end of a sword or burning.... in the name of the (*cough*) Christian God.

Our own Church of England dates back to Henry VIII and his desire to divorce his current queen for a new one which was blocked by the RCC.

Artful Dodger:  The operative word is EXTREMISTS.

The White House’s Joke Transparency
by Ben Domenech
During his presidential campaign, there were few subjects Barack Obama was more unequivocal about than transparency. He committed to bringing the sunlight, and bringing it hard — five days guaranteed for legislation posted online, debates held openly on C-SPAN, online access to all aspects of stimulus projects, and so on.

The news this week, of course, is an indication that these were all just words:

President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians

House Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Friday released data complied by his office that shows 48 out of 50 states have lost jobs since the February 2009 enactment of the economic stimulus bill.

"While Democrats promised their 2009 stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs, the reality is far different," stated a release from Camp's office. "To date, 2.6 million jobs, including 2.5 million private sector jobs, have been lost."

Tuesday: Understanding me you are not. olo

Tuesday: Say do you why that?

No idea I've got what you are about talking.

Muhammad said Satan passes wind and runs so he may not hear the Adhan (call to prayer).
Allah's Apostle said, "When the Adhan for the prayer is pronounced, then Satan takes to his heels passing wind so that he may not hear the Adhan and when the Muadh-dhin finishes, he comes back; Volume 2, Book 22, Number 313: Narrated Abu Huraira,

Gee, I've done that.

Muhammad said that yawning is from Satan.
The Prophet said, "Yawning is from Satan and if anyone of you yawns, he should check his yawning as much as possible, for if anyone of you (during the act of yawning) should say: 'Ha', Satan will laugh at him." Volume 4, Book 54, Number 509: